Scattering the Seed

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19759, 14 December 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

Scattering the Seed

James Hanley In Spectator.

I HAD CLIMBED the bill and was sitting looking down into the valley below me, conscious of two things, the death-like stillness around me, and my complete immunity from human contacts. Away across the mountains I knew there existed the desperate mass of life that symbolises the cities and towns of to-day. A March wind was blowing, but the sky was quite clear. Once a whole colony of rooks passed by cawing loudly. Below me were the brown lands, and heie and there a farmstead. Then suddenly what looked to me like a scarcecrow began to move. I stood up then and focussed my attention upon it. Yes, this strange figure was walking up and down a ploughed Held. I began to descend. As I drew nearer I saw* It was a man, but could not yet make out what he was doing In this Held. At last I came to the field Itself and climbed the gate (an awkward job this) topped by barbed wire (unusual in Wales). I discovered then that he was sowing corn. At first glance I should take him for a man of seventy. Later I discovered that he was eighty-one. He was the Nearest Thing to a Russian MouJlk I have ever seen. He wore a huge black overcoat, its collar buttoned tightly about his throat. He wore a black beard. His nose was hooked, and set between eyes of light brown. Such penetrating eyes. Seeing me he waved his hand and called out in a voice like bronze, “ Borthddada ” (good morning). The picture was almost biblical. He looked like one of the old prophets. In his left hand he held a wooden bowl, half full of seed. On his head he wore a black felt hat, much the worse for wear, the only thing that marred Hie prophet In him. For an old man he had marvellous teeth. 'But most wonderful of all was his vitality, lie breathed an energy and earnestness which one rarely associates with a man eighty years old. This energy, (his tensity lie seemed to communicate. lo Iho atmosphere around him. I remarked how early he was on the job. Laughing, he replied that lie had been up since a •quarter lo five o’clock, had brought in Ihe eaflie for milking, set the separator, lighted Iho fires, made breakfast, and seen In Ihe calf-feed. Not bad 1 thought for a man of his age. I knew, of course, that in most parts of Wales they sow Ihe corn by hand as in Ihe days or old, for Wales is a country Most Untouched by the Modern Spirit. One can travel through I lie country eomplclely obliiious to the fact Hint these are factory and machine-made days. And Ibis indifference lo progress, this indifference to modern ideas manifested itself for me in ihe person in front of me; his very demeanour was a sort of threat lo such

An Old-time Sower : Picture from Wales.

things. One felt he haAed maonines; ona could even see him disgustedly refusing any present of a machine-made sower. But then how odd this figure would have looked standing behind a mechanical sower. Hero was a hang-over from the past. I asked him If he liked sowing by hand, to which he replied laughingly, 11 But there is no other way that is good.” I teased him about the milk separator, for I felt a two-dog power churn was much more in his line. Ah It wasn’t any of his business, he had nothing to do with Its purchase. Ills son had bought the milk separator. This reassured me a little. Then he began to sow. And. watching that tall, ungainly figure wrapped in Its overcoat, treading down the field, t. realised that he was born to sow corn, to Sow It In This Old, Old Way. The beautiful rhythm of his easting, the sway of his body, the way he held his head, the graceful swing of his arm only served to fortify this realisation. One could Imagine he experienced a sort of ecstasy as he trod the firm earth beneath his feet, that as he flung this corn, towards it he was In essence symbolising his faith in the soil, his duty towards the mother earth. With this ■corn he was writing Ills own message upon, the brown lands. He was in deep communication with the oldest mother of all. Up and down he went and so he came into th& very middle of the field. It was as though some intoxicating essence rose from the earth itself. His movements were more graceful, and he was smiling, not at me, but at the soil beneath him. Here was the core of movement, movement made rhythmical, made poetio. I stood by the gate for a long while watching him. The air was still as before, and only a single gull come in from the sea appeared over his head . As he turned round I saw his heard blowing in the wind. Then his hat blew off and the picture was complete. Here was the prophet sowing his ■seed. He was no deluge of mechanical sounds, only the scraping of his hands In the corn bowl. Agajnsl. the light the corn, had the appearance of golden dust as lie Flung It Handful After Handful into the hungry earth. Then 1 went back up the hill. For a long time I sat watching the old man ai his work. He would always sow, year in yev' out. That I thought is liis destiny, lo go on serving the brown lands until death. As 1 rose lo go I stood for a moment to lake a InsL look. His tall figure slood out clearly against the skyline, and far to liis left 1 noticed a single horse. Maybe I thought lie has seen it too, for it had just appeared on 1 lie horizon. A good sign so they say lo sec a horse outlined on a hilltop. Suddenly he stopped, lie had finished his work, lie looked my way, saw me. gave a wave of Hie hand, and then disappeared behind the hedge.